Unlike some farmers, Jonathan Gibbs has had success installing and using precision equipment on older, multi-branded equipment on his 1,000 acre farm near Fox Lake, Wis.

Jamie Blythe, who farms with her parents, Betty and Jim, and her sister, Ellen Fennel, operate a diversified cropping operation on 3,500 acres near Courtland, Ala.

Nechanicky Farms has a mix of extensively modified equipment used in its 500-acre operation, plus custom farm work in north central Iowa.

Mike Shuter and his sons are no strangers to variable-rate fertilization. Twenty years ago, they began to manually vary rates on high vs. low ground using Rawson drives on their dry fertilizer spreader.

For Paul Anderson, who farms with his father, Richard and runs Victoria Seed & Processing near Coleharbor, N.D., adapting their equipment to use precision farming technology has proven to be a frustrating experience due to cross-brand compatibility issues.

Trent Sanderson came back to the family farm after graduating college in 2011, and one of the first things he did was to dive into the data collected over the years from the operation’s precision equipment.

Ray and his son, Kevin, farm 2,000 acres of corn and soybeans near Cedar Bluffs, Neb. With about 70% of their cropland irrigated, they are constantly looking for ways to improve yields while making more efficient use of nutrients and seeding rates.

Brand Dairy Farms is one of The Fertilizer Institute’s 2014 4R Advocate Award winners and precision farming equipment helped them attain it.

Ron Peterson, who farms 2,400 acres of corn and soybeans near Gilbert, Iowa, started using precision farming equipment in the 1990s with a yield monitor and hasn’t looked back. However, he remains skeptical about adopting new kid-on-the-block technology until he’s convinced it can pay its way.

Loran Steinlage could be considered one of the pioneers of precision farming.